Google crack down on sites with extensive ads

[chukcha]

In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.

Original article: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

They rekon it will only affect 1% of SERPS but I know exactly which 1% =)

[Theeban]

Thanks for the share, I had read about it few days back on another blog. Is this implemented? It was instructed to have a clean header without ads.

[thebitbotdotcom]

Easy. Just make sure your article is above the fold.

That's how it should look anyway.

[roadies9]

is it necessary that we should have more content on a page than ads?

[ichthyander]

Originally Posted by roadies9

is it necessary that we should have more content on a page than ads?

not necessarily.

[Maraun]

It means a user shouldn't have to scroll down to see the content.

[patrickwagner]

I think after they cracked down on the content farms - I bet they can reduce click-fraud since most site that have 98% ads and two lines of content are out there. Time to clear the dirt out of the search results.

[gtk29]

Matt Cutts explains that it is about sites which have too many ads and a visitor gets confused about the real content.

[solado]

Worst case scenario you have to place your advertisements lower down the page.


Doing that isn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, if your contents up to scratch you will captivate the readers attention in any case. This can lead to returning customers or even people sharing it on there blogs / social networks... I want to make money like the next guy online but cramming in flashy ads above the fold just looks crap.

[gearmonkey]

This will cut down on cheap websites built for the sole purpose to sell junk, but this could also hurt us who have a legit website that's really posting high quality content on a daily basis. My blog is so big that I can't host it on a shared server. I have ads on my blog to pay for my hosting. If I can't earn the money to pay hosting, then I won't be able to afford to keep helping the community in my niche.

This is a catch22 for a lot of folk like me.

[Derek S]

think its funny google is implementing this... after all, have they even looked at how their results pages look recently. With 100% of commercial searches, by the time you get past all their ads, google+ and so on - You are lucky if even one organic listing makes up above the fold on most monitors.

[Tim Franklin]

Every thing is about to change in 2012, What used to be ok is no longer tolerated, they do not warn you, they do not care if it ruins your business, they do not care at all.

The problem is that they have outsourced, the process of reviewing website for compliance issues to non English speaking countries, as you might imagine, what might appear to be a problem to some could just be a mistake.

However, the problem remains, have a look sometime on the adsense and adwords forums, it is filled with thousands of complaining customers.

Google is largely unreachable, you cannot call them, emails go to the same place and so are allegedly ignored.

This is not the Google you remember from years ago this is a largely an automated search engine, with empty dust filled desks where people used to sit.

We can see the results of these actions now but Google will not see them for months, sure they see the stock value in decline, but will they actually take any action at all?

Probably not, they are effectively disconnected from the very people who made them what they are today.

One thing is clear, when you ignore your customers, when you do not provide good services to your clients, eventually it all comes down like a house of cards.

What this means is that if Google does not change what they are doing, they will see an erosion in their business model, I know there are people out there that think Google is more powerful than God, but I assure you that is not the case.

Anyone that ignores customers, because they are not as big as their largest corporate partner, will eventually pay a price for that kind of mentality.

It is a shame because What google started out to be was a great thing what they have become is the very definition of Evil.

[retsek]

Originally Posted by gtk29

Matt Cutts explains that it is about sites which have too many ads and a visitor gets confused about the real content.

You see here folks. This is how SEO lies and myths start.

Cutts said just yesterday via Video chat from India that the Above the Fold update isn't looking at how many ads there are, but rather the position of the content.

[cagliostro]

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

Every thing is about to change in 2012, What used to be ok is no longer tolerated, they do not warn you, they do not care if it ruins your business, they do not care at all.

.....

What this means is that if Google does not change what they are doing, they will see an erosion in their business model, I know there are people out there that think Google is more powerful than God, but I assure you that is not the case.

Anyone that ignores customers, because they are not as big as their largest corporate partner, will eventually pay a price for that kind of mentality.

It is a shame because What google started out to be was a great thing what they have become is the very definition of Evil.

You couldn't have said it better.

BUT in the meantime we must also survive and it seems that all changes are in favor of big and rich websites.

[DynaPass]

Remember SEO is about providing relevant search results... this sounds about right.

[googleplacespro]

So is this ultimately aimed more towards ad driven sites? How does it affect small business websites?

[giseo]

Hmm maybe this is why onw my sites shot up? No traditional ad blocks but just links in the text?

[Oranges]

Yeah Yeah Yeah!!! ...and then there adsense team mail me to put 3 more ads on my pages because i only use one of the ad blocks.